owns Page 31 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Why Embiid’s scoring title is a BIG deal
Joel Embiid capped off his chase for the scoring crown on Saturday night by summoning a brilliant 41-point, 20-rebound outing in the Philadelphia 76ers’ 133-120 win over the Indiana Pacers. A dazzling 40/20 game was the perfect way to secure the best individual accomplishment of his career....

Have to admit, the Play-in is adding a lot of intrigue
Everyone’s favorite time of the year is finally here. We’re just days away from the NBA’s Play-in Tournament as eight teams battle for the right to get their spines pulled from them in the first round. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the Play-in when it was first introduced. I thought it water...

IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Cleveland Browns stand out among crowded March pack
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, where we laugh at people and organizations around the sports world because otherwise we would cry. An honorable mention for March goes out to none other than You, the reader! That’s right — You, most dearest sports media consumer, honestly believed your Marc...

Check out some of the excerpts from Deshaun Watson’s deposition
Earlier this week, TMZ posted a story with video footage from FOX 8 in Cleveland that featured excerpts from two of Deshaun Watson’s depositions in multiple civil lawsuits filed against him for sexual assault and inappropriate conduct by more than 20 women No matter how you feel about the Browns’ ne...

Kevin Durant says Dirk Nowitzki is the best shooting big of all time, but it's actually Kevin Durant
I’m not surprised that Kevin Durant has a great deal of respect for Dirk Nowitzki’s game. Prior to Dirk becoming one of the best players in the league, all the basketball players who were bigger than most of the other basketball players were scoffed at for not playing with their back to the basket. ...

It’s the ‘research’ dance again
While NFL teams, and all professional sports teams for the most part (at least those that have the faintest clue what they’re doing), spend millions on having PR firms and people at their disposal, it seems that most everything they do comes from the same template. No matter the situation, we know t...

After an all-time bad freshman campaign, where does Emoni Bates go from here?
Jalen Duren and Chet Homgren’s matchup in the Round of 32 provided a preview of two future lottery picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. Holmgren and Duren didn’t exactly light it up, but they gave scouts a glimpse of two future franchise cornerstones....

After last night, John Calipari has a new name: Can’t-Coach Cal
It’s official: John Calipari can’t coach....

Russell Westbrook’s tailspin is hitting new lows
The 2021-22 NBA season has been the seventh circle of hell for Russell Westbrook. Every week brings a new nadir....

What the hell is going on with Baker Mayfield?
The Browns QB might know something that we don’t (in fact, it’s safe to say that he probably knows a lot of things that we don’t), but his heartfelt letter to the city of Cleveland last night caused some confusion. In a notes app write-up posted to Twitter, Baker Mayfield thanked the city of Clevela...

The best to not do it
Over the years, we’ve seen some great runs during March Madness and some highly talented teams. But the most talented teams don’t always take it all the way to a national championship. Many have fallen short, and some didn’t even make it to the Final Four. Here we rank some of the best teams in NCAA...

Chris Finch is the NBA’s Coach of the Year
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ surge up the NBA standings has been a warm fire during another frigid winter. For the past decade, this has been an utterly moribund franchise. The time was nearing for Karl-Anthony Towns to begin asking for an escape hatch as his super-max contract approached its expirat...

Get ready for the next bunch of NBA bigs
Glance around the basketball landscape and you’ll see skyscrapers cast a shadow over the courts again. A whole new host of bigs are on the verge of challenging the convention that the NBA is a guard’s league....

NBA All-Star Saturday Night was fun, but changes couldn’t hurt
NBA All-Star Saturday Night was a blast this year. While the events may not have been the most exciting individually, each one added something unique to the evening. The Cavs brought home the Skill challenge trophies with their inspiring teamwork; Karl-Anthony Towns represented the big men and becam...

The Bengals are in the Super Bowl, but don’t expect them to pick up a check in L.A.
The Cincinnati Bengals have overcome quite a bit of adversity to get to Super Bowl LVI. They had to claw their way to an AFC North championship after some bad regular-season losses, including the infamous 400-yard Mike White game against the New York Jets, followed by getting smoked by Cleveland Bro...

These are the best Super Bowl halftime shows of all time
It’s hard to know whether the ads or the halftime show has become the bigger attraction of the Super Bowl. It feels like the combination of the two has made the game ancillary. Certainly, nothing exemplifies the bombast and ridiculousness of the occasion more than the halftime show, with a two-hour ...

The NBA All-Star voting process seems to up the ante on ridiculousness every year and 2022 is no exception
Let’s be honest, the NBA All-Star balloting process is one of the most absurd in professional sports. Growing up, I was never a fan of the fan vote, basically determining who plays in the game. But I don’t blame the fans entirely because fan is short for fanatic, after all. I blame the NBA for keepi...

Deadspin takes a look at every Black coach that’s been hired in the NFL since 2000 and how they fared
When Stephen Ross’ Miami Dolphins fired Brian Flores on Monday, it sent shockwaves around the NFL. For some reason, fans of all genders and races were stunned that Flores was unemployed as if Ross doesn’t have a long history of being a contradictory figure. This is the NFL, a place where Black coac...

At this point, Anthony Davis is what he is
The 2021-22 season has been less than stellar thus far for Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers, and much of that falls on the shoulders of the former No. 1 pick. This was supposed to be the year Davis took over as the Lakers’ best player, but that blueprint hasn’t worked out the way it was draw...

There’s no getting around it, the NFL despises women
There was a time in my life when nothing was as exciting as the start of the NFL season, the Bears season, here in Chicagoland....